Babe Ruth's move to New York consigned Boston's Red Sox to 86 years of misery. Source: AP

IF you thought Hawthorn's five-year, 11-game losing streak against Geelong was bad, try these long-running sporting curses on for size.

THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO

It's akin to NBA team Portland picking Sam Bowie ahead of some guy named Michael Jordan in the 1984 Draft.

The Boston Red Sox deserved some sort of penance for selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees at the end of the 1918 season, but 86 title-less years is probably a little too harsh.

Before that, they'd won four titles in seven years and were a dominant force in Major League Baseball.

The Yankees then went on to capture 26 World Series', before the Red Sox finally broke the curse in 2004, when they beat the Yankees for the American League pennant and smashed St Louis to finally ascend to the top of baseball again.

Swiss tennis player Roger Federer, French football player Thierry Henry and US golfer Tiger Woods all experienced personal woes after signing on with Gillette.Source: AFP

THE GILLETTE CURSE

Mum always said not to play with razors.

Dollars spoke for world-beating trio Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Thierry Henry when they teamed up to form the holy trinity of awesomeness in 2009.

But so did the Curse of Gillette, which struck all three within quick succession after they appeared together in an advertisement to promote the company's latest product.

Henry's squeaky clean image was tarnished when he made a blatant handball to help France cheat Ireland out of a place in the World Cup.

Meanwhile, Woods was having problems of his own after crashing his car out the front of his house when his wife learned he'd been fooling around with other women.

Australian captain Johnny Warren and his charges fell in a heap against Israel after a witch doctor turned a curse on them.Source: No Source

THE SOCCEROOS' WITCH DOCTOR CURSE

Australia's absence from World Cup football for 32 years between 1974 and 2006 is easily explained. It was the result of a witch doctor hexing the team for not paying a bill.

Socceroo Johnny Warren's autobiography includes a story from the 1970 World Cup qualifiers, when the team enlisted the help of an African witch doctor to curse their opponents. As the story goes, the doctor buried bones near each goal post of the fields on which they would play. They beat Rhodesia soon after.

But when the team couldn't foot the bill, the witch doctor reversed the curse, consigning the Aussies to a 3-0 loss to Israel when three players became sick during the match, a scoreless 1974 World Cup campaign and 32 years in the international football wilderness.

Michael Vick was injured soon after appearing on the cover of the Madden video game franchise.Source: No Source

THE MADDEN CURSE

NFL stars rue the day EA Sports decided to put them on the cover of its wildly popular Madden video game franchise. Since 1999 the game's sleeve has featured one of the NFL's top players, many of whom have been injured shortly after.

Quarterback Michael Vick appeared on the 2003 cover and suffered a leg injury that saw him miss most of the season.

Another quarterback Donovan McNabb was front and centre on Madden O6, even declaring "I don't believe in the curse at all". He then suffered a hernia in the very first game of the season but played eight games through the pain before undergoing surgery and missing the last seven.

The 2005 NFL MVP Shaun Alexander got the gig for Madden 2007, then copped a foot injury and missed six games.

Madden's current iteration features Detroit Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson, who has been a standout in the first two games of the year.

But the season is only young.

This Sports Illustrated cover may have been the source of Cleveland's dramatic form slide.Source: Supplied

THE SPORTS ILLUSTRATED CURSE

Think twice before agreeing to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine.

The magazine did its own analysis in 2002 and discovered that 37 per cent of the athletes and teams to feature on its cover were hit by injury, misfortune or a massive drop in performance afterwards.

They include the Cleveland Indians baseball team, whose 1987 cover came with the words "Believe it! Cleveland is the best team in the American League". Their 101 losses and last-place finish that year might indicate otherwise.

Or golfer Jim Venturi, who was pumped up as the 1964 sportsman of the year, only to develop carpal tunnel syndrom and struggle through the next season.

The worst case was racing driver Pat O'Connor, who was pictured on the 1958 Indianapolis 500 preview edition, then was killed in a 15-car pile-up on the last lap of that race.

Bela Guttman put a nasty - and lasting - curse on Portugeuse football team Benfica.Source: No Source

BENFICA'S BELA GUTTMAN CURSE

The statistics are simple. Benfica won two European Cups, two Portuguese league title and one Portoguese Cup during manager Bela Guttman's three years at the helm.

Then Guttman rightly asked for a pay rise after leading the team to a European Cup final win over Barcelona in 1962. But the club's board knocked him back and then sacked him, prompting Guttman to tell the club it would not win another European Cup for 100 years.

Benfica has been defeated in all seven of its European Cup final appearances since, including this year's 2-1 loss against Chelsea.

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